Events

CBS Announces New Primetime Lineup For 2016-2017 Season

Bull stars Michael Weatherly as Dr. Jason Bull in a drama inspired by the early career of Dr. Phil McGraw. This fall, Bull will be broadcast Tuesdays (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on CBS. (Photo: CBS)

NEW YORK (CBS) – CBS has unveiled its 2016-2017 primetime lineup, featuring three new comedies, five new dramas and 21 returning series. The new series will join a lineup that will finish the current season as America’s most-watched network in viewers for the 13th time in 14 years, including the last eight years straight.

The new lineup will expand the networks comedy offerings from four to eight shows with two two-hour blocks on Mondays and Thursdays. Stars featured in these new comedies and dramas include, Kevin James, Matt LeBlanc, Joel McHale, Michael Weatherly, Katherine Heigl, Dermot Mulroney, Laverne Cox, Dulé Hill and Bill Paxton.

The new fall comedies include: “Kevin Can Wait,” starring Kevin James as a newly retired police officer who faces tougher challenges at home with his wife and three kids than he ever did on the streets; “Man With A Plan,” starring Golden Globe Award winner Matt LeBlanc as a contractor who starts spending more time with his kids when his wife goes back to work and discovers the truth every parent eventually realizes: his little angels are maniacs; and “The Great Indoors,” starring Joel McHale as a renowned adventure reporter for an outdoor magazine who becomes the desk-bound boss to a group of eager millennials in the publication’s digital edition.

For the drama category, the new shows are: “Bull,” starring Michael Weatherly as a brilliant and charming trial consultant; the action-adventure drama “MacGyver,” an origin story of the classic series starring Lucas Till and George Eads; and “Pure Genius,” starring Dermot Mulroney and Augustus Prew in a medical drama about a Silicon Valley billionaire superstar who enlists the world’s best medical minds to work in his state-of-the-art hospital.

Two new series also set to premiere in the 2016-2017 season are: “Training Day,” a crime drama that begins 15 years after the events of the successful feature film, starring Bill Paxton as a hardened, morally ambiguous detective for the LAPD, and Justin Cornwell as a young, idealistic officer tapped to go undercover as his trainee to spy on him; and the legal drama “Doubt,” starring Katherine Heigl, Steven Pasquale, Dulé Hill and Laverne Cox, about an attorney who begins to fall for her charismatic client accused of murdering his girlfriend.

In March the network announced the renewals of 11 series bringing the grand total of returning shows to 21 for the 2016-2017 season. Also returning are the Emmy Award-winning reality programs “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” and “Undercover Boss.”

In addition to the new shows and 21 established series, “NFL Thursday Night Football” returns to CBS’s #1 primetime lineup for the third consecutive year with five early-season games. The Thursday broadcasts kick off on Sept. 15 with New York Jets at Buffalo Bills.

“One of our goals this development season was to expand our lineup of top-rated comedies, and these new shows and big stars give us the opportunity to do so in a big way,” said Glenn Geller, President, CBS Entertainment. “With the Network’s returning roster of hits and time-period winners, we’re able to strategically schedule all of our exciting new comedies and dramas with the best possible launch pads to succeed.”